Snapshots
by ThexBlairxWitch
Summary: Y'all know how crazy it gets in South Park. These are just some little random snap shots. WARNING for gore in at least the first chapter!
1. Detrimental

***rises from the dead* It's aliiiiive! This time with South Park. I'm such a deadbeat. I never finish things. But I've decided recently that South Park is actually my favorite TV show, ever. Ever. Period. I will go lock myself in a dark windowless room for a week when it gets cancelled. Which it hopefully never will.**

**Anyway. My life has been like utter shit lately (um, hello? Mother dropped and broke my laptop. Then tried to deny it.) so I wrote this to try and squeeze out the bad feelings. Like a sponge. Doesn't mean I necessarily condone any of this. **

**WARNING: lots of violence, blood, and gore. There's a reason this is M. **

The bag that I'm dragging behind me wriggles. The vinyl material scrapes against the pitted concrete. There's muffled sounds coming from inside.

"Shut up," I mutter, kicking it before continuing on.

I can see my destination in the near distance. A tiny shack, the guard post for this huge abandoned warehouse that's looming behind it. It looks like a corner of the ceiling is falling in, but I know for a fact it isn't, because I went in there and patched it up myself, using a tarp. A mediocre job, but it didn't matter. Not like I'd be here for a long time.

This bag is getting heavy. I let it go for a moment, and it drops against the ground with a thud. There's a moan, and all is silent again.

I glare at it ruefully. Still making trouble, even zipped into a body bag and half conscious.

Sighing heavily, I pick it up again and start walking. The shack is only fifteen feet away now. I'm confident that no one will see me, because no one ever comes here. That's exactly the reason why I came here in the first place.

Finally, after what feels like hours of effort, I shoulder the door open and drag the bag inside. This time, when I drop it, it wriggles again, more violently. I push my hair out of my eyes with a frustrated noise, and crouch to unzip the bag.

A blonde head pops out, sucking in air. I yank the gag out of Kenny's mouth. He gasps. I whack him in the back of the head.

Kenny growls. He glares at me in defiance, but the anger is only a sham, hurriedly hung over the gaping, empty hole of confusion that's yawning inside him. He doesn't know why I'm doing this.

Good. Neither do I.

I brush his hair out of his eyes to meet his stare. It's an electric jolt when our gazes meet; his irises are like blue lightning shooting straight to the core of me. This is what I love about him: the pure energy he always exudes, despite the fact that he does nothing with it.

"Where the fuck are we, Kyle?" he asks, rubbing a trickle of blood from his chin with the back of his hand.

I shrug, standing up and scanning the small, decrepit room. It looks vaguely like a bomb went off in here; it's just a shell of concrete with scorch marks shading the walls. Either there was a fire or some moron thought it would be fun to pull out a blowtorch and waste it on nothing in particular.

Kenny struggles on the floor, unable to rise because his hands and feet are bound. "I said, where the fuck are we? Answer me, Broflovski."

"Why is it that important to you?" I ask him. "Shouldn't you be more worried about why you're here?"

"I don't give a shit. All I know is, you're out of your mind."

He's still glaring at me. I place my hand over my heart and brush an imaginary tear from my eye. "That hurts, dude. I thought we were friends."

Kenny scoffs. "Last time I checked, friends don't knock their friends out, tie them up, stuff them in a fucking body bag, and drag them out to the middle of fucking nowhere for no reason."

Crouching down, I press a finger to his lips. "Ah, but there is a reason."

"Well, what is it?" he asks around my finger. I shudder delicately, stand back up and step away.

"You don't get to know yet," I tease him, waving the same digit in the air.

"Why the fuck not?"

I turn around, facing the window and staring out it for a brief moment. When I face him again, he's slumped against the wall, looking tired and wary. He sees me looking at him, and pulls his defiant face back on.

I laugh aloud, my voice breaking against the charred walls and broken windows and rebounding back to me in some strange discord. Kenny winces.

"How precious you are," I tell him, a smug smile playing across my lips. Reaching into my pocket, I pull out a switch blade, flipping it open and examining it with a degree of disinterest.

Suddenly, I whip it at his head. Kenny ducks automatically. The blade misses him by mere inches, clattering against the wall behind him and falling to the floor, where it lays still and innocent once more.

"I like knives," I say, walking over to retrieve it. Kenny's expression is slightly shocked, but he's fighting to hide it. "They're so easy to use, and so easily hidden. Handy, too. Don't you think?"

He doesn't say anything as my fingers find the handle. I pick it up slowly, drawing the blade along his spine. It cuts through the material of his jacket and shirt easily, leaving a trail of blood.

When I step back, I pull my backpack off of my shoulders and drop it heavily on the ground. There's a clamor from inside, and Kenny eyes me warily as I zip it open and reach a hand in.

"But the thing about knives is, you can't control them as easily. Needles are good too." I pull one of them out. It glints in the dim, grimy light coming through the window. I stole a handful of these from the chiropractor when my mom went for a visit. They're long, and skinny. Perfect. Beautiful.

"What do you think?" I ask, turning to him. "Knives? Needles?"

He doesn't say anything.

"Or how about both? That sounds much more fun."

"Kyle," he says suddenly, "what the hell is wrong with you? You've never been like this. You have a _fear_ of needles. Seriously. Tell me what's going on."

"I realized my fear of needles is irrational," I muse, pricking the tip of my thumb with the point of the metal instrument. A drop of blood wells up instantaneously, glistening like a bright red pearl. Licking it off, I smile.

Kenny cringes slightly when I walk over to him; I don't know if he notices. Well, I suppose he has a right to be scared. I'm pretty sure most people would either be frozen solid in fear or screaming their heads off.

Kneeling next to him, I draw the needle across his cheek. Kenny doesn't move, but stares defiantly at me.

"Kyle," he intones flatly. "Something is wrong. Just tell me what's going on, and we'll fix it."

"There's nothing to fix," I chide him, smiling maliciously as I push the needle through his cheek. He winces, but nothing more. I push it back through the skin, and leave it there, piercing his face, shimmering with blood.

"I just thought it's about time I got to have some fun, is all."

When Kenny speaks, he does so carefully, doing his best not to stretch his skin. "Dude, you do have fun. You do things with Stan and I all the time. Remember? Or is that not fun for you anymore?" When I don't reply, just continue running my finger over a knife blade, he continues. "If it's not, well, seriously, you could've told us. This isn't exactly necessary."

"How do you know what's necessary?" I burst out, brandishing the knife at him. He flinches. More quietly, I ask, "What if this is necessary?"

"It's not," he tells me.

"Well, that's your opinion," I sniff. Moving closer to him again, I take his hands, and rip the knife through the rope binding them. When they're free, Kenny spends a minute rubbing his raw wrists, throwing me a questioning glance.

I grin. He thinks he's free. He's not.

I take one of his hands, play with his fingers briefly, then pin it to a wall. Horror dawns in Kenny's eyes. Before he can blink, I slam the knife through his hand, burying it to the hilt in his palm. Releasing the knife, I lean back, satisfied that it's going to hold in the piece of wood I have screwed to the wall.

Kenny's screaming, bellowing in pain. He tries to pull the blade out with his free hand, but his fingers slip on the blood, and before he can try again I take his other wrist and pin it to the wall too. He knows what's coming next, and he quiets, breathing heavily and fixing me with a monstrous glare. I pull another knife from my pocket, this one slightly smaller, and slowly dig it through his flesh. Kenny hangs his head, teeth clenched around another scream as he violently hisses air out from between them.

The tip of the blade comes to a stop. I look at it quizzically; I know it hasn't gone all the way through yet. Pressing it gently again, I find that there's something blocking it. Realizing it's a bone, I push harder, until I feel the satisfying crunch of that bone snapping. The knife continues through easily, finally sticking in the wood. I smile wistfully, sitting back on my heels.

Kenny is shouting curse words at me now. I drown him out with the sound of the monster purring contentedly in my head.

"Fucking… hell, Kyle," he manages, voice ragged. "What the… fuck… do you think you're doing?"

"Having fun," I respond. I reach out behind me and grab blindly for my backpack. When my fingers close around the shoulder strap, I haul it over towards me. I notice there's a blade sticking out the side, and click my tongue. "Guess I'll have to get a new one…"

I reach inside my bag of goodies, and pull out a pair of scissors. With a twisted smile, I lean towards Kenny and slide one blade inside his shirt.

A minute later, his shirt and hoodie are in strips on the floor around him. I eye my blank white canvas, and consider. What first?

"Kyle, stop this," Kenny begs. "Dude, you've lost your fucking mind. If anyone else finds out about this, you'll be sitting in a padded cell and being forced to hug yourself until your eighty."

"No one's going to find out," I sing. Since I already have the scissors out, I think I'll start there.

Kenny jerks away when I bring the twin blades near his face, but I merely pull a lock of his hair away from his face and snip that off. I curl it around my finger and press it briefly to my lips, then tuck it away in my pocket.

He's watching me with a perplexed expression. I love it when he's confused. It makes things all the more fun.

"You know, Ken," I tell him abruptly, "you need to smile more. Don't you think?"

"How in the hell do you expect me to smile in this situation?"

I snicker, snipping my scissors. "I can make you smile."

He realizes what I'm getting at, and his face struggles to break into a grin. "I'm smiling, Kyle! Look, see?"

It's not a real smile. It's a fake, twisted leer, barely masking his horror. It doesn't look like a smile at all. I sigh. It would be better if I helped him out.

I get on my knees beside him, and slip a blade under his undamaged cheek. Kenny tries to jerk his head away, but only cuts the inside of his mouth.

"Are you sure you don't want to smile for me?" I ask him, pouting.

"I'm smiling!" he insists desperately.

I close the blade of the scissors.

Kenny howls. He's spurting blood all over himself and I, gagging on it. I pull the scissors from his face and survey my handiwork. It doesn't look right; now there's a flap of skin hanging from the side of his face. I should cut that off, too. So I do, being careful to cut upwards.

When I'm finished, I discard the piece of flesh, and examine him again. Much better. Kenny's scream has ripped his skin even further, and torn the other side where the needle is. There's blood still pouring down his front, but now his teeth are exposed. The skeletal grin adds to the menace and pain in his glare.

"I love your smile, Ken," I declare, tilting his bloody chin up. "Absolutely love it."

He spits blood at my face.

Laughing, I wipe it off my cheek, and turn to my backpack once again. This time, instead of reaching inside, I upend it, wanting to fully see my range of options.

Kenny gapes in horror as I pull a wickedly curved blade from the pile of metal.

"What the hell is that thing?" he chokes.

"Not sure," I say, eyeing it critically. "I found it in my dad's collection." When his eyes question me, I deign to explain. "After Ike and I got older, my dad started collecting knives. God knows why – he never told us his reasons. But, well, I suppose they do come in handy sometimes, don't they?"

He's not even watching me anymore; he's focused on the blade of the knife in my hand. I frown. Mustn't have that. I scoot closer to him and place the tip of the blade just under the right side of his ribs. Then I drop it, realizing there's no way I could do minor damage with it.

"Save the fun for last," I murmur, picking up another couple of needles.

"Save the fun for last?" Kenny repeats, disgusted. "Honestly, Kyle. You've gone completely insane. Why am I not surprised?"

I'm the one who's surprised. Surprised he can still speak. I turn to him, hatred icing over my glare. "I don't know. I can't read your mind. Why aren't you surprised?"

Before he can answer me, I take one of my needles and jam it up under his chin. It pushes through his tongue, and I can feel it lodge satisfyingly in the roof of his mouth. Kenny lets out a strangled yell. I dangle another needle in front of his eyes, moving it closer and closer until the point is resting in the inner corner of one.

"Cry for me," I murmur. And I stick the point into his tear duct.

Blood immediately blossoms beneath his cornea. Then it slowly gathers in the corner of his eye, until a steady stream of it is trickling down his face.

I make sure the other eye matches before I sit back and sigh. "You are so hard to work with," I tell him.

Kenny doesn't say anything, doesn't even meet my gaze. I feel anger burbling up, clutching at my throat. Rising suddenly, I kick him in the side.

"Why are you always so difficult?" I yell as his body jerks. "You're difficult with _everyone_. Adults, other kids, girls, teammates… always causing problems. Why do people still talk to you?"

He has no answer. His mouth is still pinned shut, but I feel like he wouldn't answer me even if it wasn't.

"No one really likes you," I spit. "You aren't as popular as you think. People won't tell you to your face, or maybe they will, but they hate you."

He still isn't responding. The only way I know he isn't dead is the slow rise and fall of his chest.

"You know people hate you, right?" I say, kicking him again. "You know what they say about you? Or do you, and you're just too cool to care?" The fury is bubbling over, spilling out of my mouth like lava. What I'm saying makes me cringe, just because of the raw truth of it.

"No one likes you Kenny! You're not liked, you're not wanted, you're not needed!" The fire turns bitter, ashy. Was that true?

Suddenly the tongues of flame leap higher, and I scream, "Do you hear me?" I grab a knife and slash it violently down his abdomen. His body spasms for a brief second before falling mostly still, and suddenly there's a gash welling more blood. Blood, blood, more blood. Is that all this kid has? It's like he's making himself vulnerable. Pretending to be stupid. A martyr? Or just an idiot? Maybe both.

Taking the knife, I drive it into the back of one of his knees. A ragged moan escapes from between his clenched teeth, and his blood bubbles over his chin. Kenny leans his head back and looks at me with blank eyes.

"What are you looking at?" I seethe.

I see the answer in his eyes: a twisted homicidal maniac.

I shriek in rage and drive the knife into his arm, twisting it. The bone breaks. In response, he shrieks in agony.

With a feral grin, I go back to grab more metal instruments. The needles I jam under his fingertips and slide into his veins. I line more knives up down his arms, and draw lines of blood along his eyelids.

"No one likes you, no one wants you, no one needs you," I chant breathlessly as I work. I feel out of control and totally in control at the same time, and it's a wonderful feeling.

Somehow, by the end of it, Kenny is still breathing, still bleeding. I wonder how he has any blood left in him. I turn around and pick up the last knife, the curved one. When I look at him once again, he's watching me tiredly. With a Herculean effort, he pulls his jaws apart, the needle in his mouth coming unstuck with a hideous sucking sound.

"Ky," he breathes tonelessly. There's gravel and blood and water and oil all mixed in his voice, quiet as it is. "Stop. Just… stop… things will be okay…"

I stare at him, motionless. Then I lean forward, take the blade of the knife, and carve a heart into his chest.

"I always thought you were so pretty when you died," I tell him. My hand is shaking as I slip the knife up under the center of his ribcage. Then, quickly as I can, I stand and make my way out the door.

It takes me less than five minutes to reach my car. By then, I've come up with an alibi for my blood-soaked clothes.

Before I climb in, I smear the front bumper carefully with my hands, keeping a critical eye on the appearance of the quickly drying blood. When I decide that it looks good enough, I open the door and climb in. As I rev the engine to life, I think briefly of Kenny again. Maybe he'll survive until morning. Or maybe this time he'll die and never come back. Who knows.

I don't give him a second thought as I drive away.

When I reach my house, Stan is sitting on the front stoop waiting for me. His very posture looks anxious: shoulders hunched, arms wrapped around his knees. His hat is sitting askew on his head. I pull the car into the driveway, and he immediately springs up and dashes over. But he blanches when I open the door and climb out.

"Ky –" His voice breaks as he stares. "Kyle, what happened to you? A-are you okay?"

"I'm fine," I reassure him. As soon as I say it, Stan throws his arms around me and pulls me into one of his bear hugs.

"Why are you covered in blood?" he stammers, sounding afraid and desperately curious at the same time.

"I hit a deer on the road," I explain. "It died immediately, so I pulled over and hauled it into the woods. You know, as a courtesy to other drivers. That thing was bleeding like crazy."

Stan heaves a sigh of relief. "You're such a considerate person. I don't understand how you do it."

He can't see my awful, teeth-baring grin. If only he knew.

**Fini. Well, that was my first time with the macabre genre, so don't roast me for it. I wrote it for me, anyways.**

**See you guys whenever. (I still love you!) **

**~ Ryuu **


	2. Everything's Fine

**Back again.**

**This is on a totally different wavelength from the last one. And when I say totally, I mean opposite end of the spectrum. Red vs. purple. You know. To be more specific, it's Creek fluff. It didn't start out as Creek. It didn't really start out as anybody. I was just listening to music and started writing, and suddenly it just seemed to mold into them. **

**Whatever. It works. Enjoy. **

I sit cross-legged on the hotel bed, fingers curling and uncurling anxiously into the plush comforter. The elegance of the room doesn't register with me. All I can see are the airplanes out the window.

Bright lights winking from every wing and cabin. Taking off into the velvet of the night sky, or coasting in to jolt onto the tarmac. They do a strange dance with each other among the scudding clouds, weaving in and back out of my line of sight. There are people in just about every one of those planes. They all have families, friends, people who care about them. I wonder if I'm just another one of those loved ones, waiting for my traveler to return to me. I can't imagine I'm any different, in spite of the feeling of dread that sits heavily on my shoulders. It's true I'm probably one of the only ones who rented a hotel room near the airport because I'm so desperate to see him again that I can't stand to wait the night. But I'm sure everyone is eager to reunite again.

I hope to God he makes it back. He should have landed already, I think. But so many things can go wrong on airplanes. They're really just hunks of processed metal hurtling through the sky. Glorified hunks of metal. With their strangely beautiful blinking lights and their wings that curve upwards at the tips. I don't understand why anyone would willingly step onto one of those knowing that they'd be careening through the sky, thousands of feet from the ground, to someplace they've probably never been before. Those engines are enormous; they look like could either explode or fall off midflight. That's too much power for anyone to actually be in control of. Cars are bad enough, especially with all the idiots on the road – I nearly had a heart attack on the cab ride here because the cabbie driving me was a maniac, and I swear he cut across three lanes of traffic. Who decided that we should put one or two people in charge of flying freaking planes? I mean, Jesus Christ.

He hasn't called yet. Why hasn't he called? He promised he would call once he landed. I glance at my cell phone, lying abandoned on the pillow, hoping to see a message telling me that I'd somehow missed the ringing. But I get no such reassurance. I reach for it, my hand shaking even more than normal, but I remember that there's no point. I settle back where I was, lacing and unlacing my fingers carefully, one shoulder jerking briefly.

A door slams. I jump, trembling, and glance wildly around before realizing it was just a neighbor down the hall. There's no way anyone could get into this room. They'd have to have the keycard, and I have one of them. The other one is down at the front desk, being reserved specifically for him when he gets here. But what if someone broke the door down?

I hear his voice in my head, unbidden. 'Why would anyone want to break a hotel room door down?' he says. 'And why your room in particular? It's not going to happen, I promise.'

My shaking quells a bit at his illusory assurance. A beep from the kitchenette tells me that the coffeemaker has finished brewing. I spring up, tiptoeing around the bed and the ottoman that's sitting in front of the sofa until I'm standing in front of the machine. A little red light is merrily alerting me that my coffee is ready to drink, and I reach for one of the mugs that are sitting upside down on a placemat in the corner. I kind of like hotels; they're so orderly. Everything in its place, the sheets and pillows all neat and tidy, and all the hygiene products come individually wrapped, even the shower cap. Not that I use a shower cap anyway. What's the point of that? I can just imagine what would happen if I put it on: it would either be too big, and slip over my face and suffocate me, or it would be too tight, and I would eventually lose consciousness because of the lack of blood flow.

'The shower cap won't do anything to you,' his voice reminds me. I shake my head fervently, hair whipping around my face, and pour my cup of coffee. Steam rises from the cup and forms little question marks, swirls of curiosity escaping timidly, only to dissipate in the open air. Kind of like me. I disappear so readily in the sheer vastness of the world around me.

I touch the side of the ceramic, and withdraw my finger quickly. So I pull the sleeves of my navy sweater, the one that isn't actually mine but stolen from his closet, over my hands and wrap them around the mug. Then I move to take a sip, forgoing both the sugar and cream packets that are artfully arranged in a little basket next to the coffeemaker. Before I do, I remember that it's still hot, and I'll probably burn myself. That would be bad. How would I heal a scalded mouth? It's not like I can put Neosporin on it, because that would probably poison me. So I blow gently over the rim of the mug, being careful not to slosh any over the sides. Burned hands would do me no good either.

Another door slams, and I'm so startled that I nearly drop my coffee. When all is silent again, the floor captures my attention. It's the kind of carpet that is used in hotels and offices and public buildings everywhere, the oddly patterned kind that is supposed to disguise stains. But I can already see one abnormal reddish brown splotch next to my feet. What could that be? My mind suddenly springs to an image of a man standing with an axe over the broken, bloody body of a woman, and I let out a quiet scream, searching my mind desperately for the comfort of his voice.

'There was no axe murder,' he sighs when I find him. I start walking back over to the bed, losing myself to the simple words. 'It was probably just food someone spilled, not blood.'

Holding my cup in one shaking hand, I crawl onto the bed and curl up, nodding my head subconsciously as I huddle into a ball and continue staring at planes.

The coffee is bad. Horrid, really. Cheap hotel brand. The bag even had the hotel's logo stenciled on the front. But by now the caffeine has dissolved into my system, and I can feel myself beginning to calm, so I could care less what it tastes like. I never liked the taste of coffee, really; all black and bitter and inky. But my parents always gave it to me, ever since I was five, so I developed a dependence on the caffeine. The flavor doesn't even bother me now, unless it's really low quality. And even if it is, as long as I get my fix, I could really care less.

The pillow presses against my cheek as I shrink against it, retreating into myself. The coffee cup is nestled against my chest, and my eyes trace through the piece of sky I can see out the window from this position. There are no stars to be seen. The ones that aren't obscured by city lights are blotted out by the clouds. At least the waxing moon can still be seen, its rays lancing brightly over the sill and spilling across the bed. My legs look so pale in the moonlight, and I wish for the hundred thousandth time that I wasn't so scrawny and pasty. Everyone I meet thinks I'm sickly, especially with the dark circles that are constantly rimming my eyes like bruises.

My body feels lonely, and I wrap my arms around myself to try and deceive it into believing that I'm not isolated, that my heart isn't the only one beating in this room. It almost works; I almost feel his arms around my neck like the last time I saw him, when he was hugging me goodbye. I held onto him like it was the last time I'd see him in my life. I remember feeling like it could have been. I'm still deathly afraid that it was, and it seems like the longer I wait for him to arrive, the more terrified I feel. It's a slow and painful torture, like I'm being forced to swallow sludgy lumps of poison. It's infecting my heart, and turning my mind into a dark and shadowy place where I want to huddle in a corner and sob because I'm afraid I'll never get out.

Every plane that I see coming in to land, I think to myself, 'Is that him? Could he be getting off that plane? Is he getting his suitcase right now?' I do my best to banish the awful images of a plane sinking in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, or a terrorist setting a bomb off as he walks by.

There's a rattling noise at the door. I squeak involuntarily. My eyes float over to the digital clock. The luminescent red numbers read 1:48. I feel my throat constrict of its own accord; it's exactly the time _they_ come. My breath hitches in my lungs. How could they have followed me here? Forgetting my coffee, I throw myself off the bed and onto the floor, hunching down against the wall and as far back into the corner as I can manage.

There's cursing outside. A low, gruff voice. I'm terrified, past my wits end, and I can't seem to stop the keening that's escaping me and betraying my hiding spot. The coffee is seeping into the bed sheets and dripping onto the floor; a drop falls onto my leg and I hiss, scooting backwards.

Suddenly I understand what people mean when they say their life flashed before their eyes. I'm no longer in this moment, in this room. Instead I'm going to my happy place, to where nothing can ever touch me, where no dark fingers of nightmares can reach.

The door opens and the sound hauls me back to reality. I can just barely see, silhouetted in the frame, a figure far taller than any gnome I'd ever seen.

Did the send the king for me? I whimper, balling my fists and covering my face with them.

I hear something being dragged into the room. A second later it thuds on the bed, and I can't resist crying out. My lip is between my teeth even as the noise escapes me, and I'm cursing myself for not being able to keep quiet.

My name rings through the following silence. "Tweek?"

Footsteps are coming closer to me. I wish I could melt into the wall. Even if it meant ending up outside and falling four stories to my death, I want nothing more than to get out of this living hell.

"Tweekers."

My eyes open at my nickname. Trembling, hesitating, I look up into what has to be the most beautiful sight in my life.

It's him. His hair is incredibly mussed and he appears groggy and grumpy and his shirt is disheveled, and he's looking at me like I'm nuts, which isn't that uncommon. But the light in his eyes is still there, shining brighter than ever.

I slowly uncurl myself and move towards him, like he has his own gravitational pull. At the last second, as he opens his arms to me, I launch myself at him, bawling.

"I thought you weren't… gah! I thought you weren't coming back!" I cry, clutching at him.

He's lying flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling, not seeming amused. But I can feel his hand moving automatically through my hair. "Why would you think that?" he asks me. "I promised I'd be back."

"I-I know, but I just…" My thin frame is seized by a brief spasm. He holds onto me. "I just…"

He sighs. Says nothing. The moonlight streams up above our heads.

"I promised you I'd come back," he tells me finally. His voice is terse, but he's never been good at comforting, despite the years he's had to get used to it. Ten years and he still sounds the same. "And I did. Everything's fine."

My muscles start to relax, and a warm feeling spreads through me that isn't the coffee soaking through my pants. The gnomes aren't coming, he's back, we're safe. His hand strokes my hair and my cheek, and my body is like a tightly bunched spring that slowly relaxes and unwinds. My eyes flutter closed, and my breathing slows. I don't even care that I'm falling asleep on the floor; I'm not alone and that's all that matters.

I hear him one last time before I drift off. "Everything's fine," he says again. This time it doesn't seem like he's speaking to me. He's speaking out to the moonlight, the darkness, the stars, the planes dancing in the sky.

**Yeah, just had to end deep there. Waist deep. In cheese. Thick, gooey cheese. I'm pretty much crap at ending things, so that's the best I can do. But… how was it? Good? Bad? Mutant bunny? **

**Ignore that. **

**Review? Love you guys, see you whenever.  
~Ryuu **


	3. I Hope You Break

**Long time no see! Yeah, I'm on winter break now, which is the only reason I'm really posting something.**

**This was originally just some random drabble – I didn't even know who the character was. Then for some reason I got stuck on the idea that it's Kyle. I don't know why, but I seem to like making Kyle into the absolute nutso crazy one. It's weird and short, but just roll with me here. I got the idea from this mark on my school ceiling.**

**Prior warnings: the tense is a little iffy. This gets vaguely creepy. Enjoy. **

It wasn't there yesterday, I swear it. The ceiling was whole, unmarked. Pure, ugly white, studded with fluorescent light fixtures, which buzzed in atypical discord all day long.

But today, there's a tiny laceration. Like the ceiling tile is sickly alabaster skin. The whole cold expanse of it is a dying person's pallid cheek. I can see the lips of the skin, curling outward just barely, revealing a pink tint inside and a dark expanse behind them. I shiver. There's a breathy moaning coming from it. I can barely hear it against the lights' incessant drone. The air current it produces is just tangible, back and forth. The building is breathing.

Once I see an eyeball appear, first backwards, then rolling sickeningly forwards until the shocking green iris meets mine. If it could blink, I swear it would. As it is, the bloodshot eye stares me down before shooting back into that three inch gash with a cringe-worthy sucking sound.

And now every day, that's all I'm staring at. As the teacher blathers on, I watch the slit. Someone could snap their fingers in front of my face, and it wouldn't phase me.

Because it's growing bigger.

I remember when I read that bamboo grows so fast that you can sit there and watch it. That's exactly what this is. It's like an invisible finger is stuck in each end, slowly pulling outwards and slicing it further. It gapes larger and larger every day, lips of dying skin curling further.

It exhumes a scent now. More of an odor, and I'm the only one who can smell it. Like putrid flesh, bitter stomach acid and bile, the rotting cells of a living thing going cannibal and destroying themselves and each other. Kamikaze cells. If I listen hard enough, I think I can hear them screaming.

Every day that eyeball pops out to check on me. It doesn't look like it can see anymore – the cornea has clouded over, and it's only attached to the nerve bundle by a thread – but I know it can still see me, if nothing else. It's watching me. It never directs it rheumy stare at anything else. It's like a programmed spy camera, keeping tabs.

What does this building want?

I know. Somehow, I know. It wants me, all of me. It wants to possess me, like a doll in a diorama display. I don't know how to escape it when I'm forced to be here, nine hours a day, five days a week. More, if I'm particularly ill-fated. I want nothing more than to stay curled in my bed, far away from that eyeball and what I know it represents, from all the people who think I'm crazy when I fall to pieces screaming, and the whispers that follow me like little mournful ghosts through the hallways.

Whispers aren't the only thing that's following me either. Lately more of the ceiling slits have been popping up everywhere I go, in the hallways, in classrooms, even, perversely, in the bathrooms. When I see the green iris watching me, I shudder and draw my arms around myself, like it's the eye of some pedophile. If I was honest, I would say I feel violated, but my paranoia makes me deny the very existence of the eye. If I ever do think of it, the only broken record playing in my head is, "Why me? Why me?"

The smell is permeating the building. I don't understand how the rest of them continue on obliviously, their feet squelching through the rotten much that the floors have disintegrated into, their gazes passing over the paint and drywall sloughing off the walls like so much dead skin detaching from a carcass. It's hideous, and it makes me retch.

Is it controlling them? Every once in a while, I catch a group of them standing silently by the door of one particular classroom. They don't speak, don't even look at anything. Just standing for no other reason than to be standing. It's not natural. And when I do muster up the energy to make my vocal chords work, for just a moment, every once in a while I detect this robotic undertone in their voices as they reply. It's not right, and I don't understand it. The only thing I can think of is that it's taken over of them, holding their minds hostage in limbo until they leave the premises. On the one hand, it means that I'm not the only one affected. But it does mean that I'm the only one who has to consciously live through this. And being by myself in this might be the most terrifying part. Watching them and having to think, 'What if I lose my mind too?'

There's a distinct possibility that I already have. I can feel my sanity, like a delicate piece of tissue, tearing apart at the seams, shreds of it receding into this dark howling wind tunnel that's consuming me.

I have to ask. I don't think it's a conscious being, because the concept is just too twisted for my mind to accept, but if it is – just if – is it toying with me? This hideous creature probably enjoys what it's doing to me; delights in watching me destroy myself. I wonder what will happen to me when I drive myself over the brink.

Is this just some sick fantasy of my mind? Maybe I'm lying in a hospital bed somewhere, stuck in a coma filled to the brim with vivid nightmares. Somehow, though, that would be better than all this being real.

It's watching me now. The eye is nowhere to be found, but I can tell by the prickling on the back of my neck. It's following me through these empty hallways, when everyone else is in class. Everything in me is screaming at me to run out the door at the end of the hallway and into the frigid winter air, but I know that somehow it would stop me. Still, my feet numbly carry me to the glass door. My hands press against it, and in my heart I can hear cruel, sardonic laughter at my predicament. I could be making the noise, or it could be that I have so far internalized this beast that I can think for it. My fingers tremble at the thought, and I back away from the exit, watching the wind teasingly finger the branches of the sapling trees.

Something is dragging me unwillingly backwards. My legs are moving, carrying me backwards to where I least want to be, and I can't do a thing to resist, so I don't try. I feel hollow inside, empty, like a matryoshka doll missing its inner selves.

The hallway I face when I turn around is somehow different. I can't put my finger on it. The lights may be brighter, the walls may be whiter. It feels different. Too clean. The sheer loneliness I suffer when I peer inside a room to find it empty of everything – desks, chairs, posters on the walls – wraps around me, squeezing my organs until I can no longer breathe. I gasp for air, and as my jaw drops I feel something I can't see force its way down my throat. It's slimy, disgusting, and suddenly there's a thick, viscous liquid trailing down my esophagus, burning a path to my stomach. I gag, choke, cough, and fall to my knees.

Suddenly, my hands are buried in pools of half-rotted flesh. I shriek, still hacking, and jerk away to find that I'm immersed up to my thighs in it. My wide eyes take in the hallway, revealed to me now as it is: an endless tunnel leading into darkness, going nowhere, colored angry red and decaying black by the tissue adorning the walls.

I hold my trembling, bloodstained hands out in front of me like I'm in some B-rated horror movie. I can't comprehend them, can't register what's happening to me.

The eyeball drops into my open palms. I'm too disgusted to move, even to throw the thing as far as I can away from me. The orb rolls itself over in my hands to stare blindly up at me, and suddenly, I know, it's lifeless. The foundation quakes beneath my feet, and there's a rumbling sound from somewhere behind me. My head turns slowly, without my consent, and I peer down the hall.

The walls seem to be covered with glistening white things. Bugs of some sort? Scales? Hairless albino rats? I wouldn't be surprised. But as the whiteness moves closer and closer to me, my muscles seize up.

They're teeth. Thousands of sharp, shiny, hungry teeth.

I can't hold in my scream, and I manage to haul myself to my feet and take off running.

There's a hideous clicking noise growing behind me, chasing me, nipping at my heels, and as I run faster, it gains on me. I can tell it's the teeth, snicking against each other as they race to reach me first and devour me. I've got images zipping through my head as fast as my feet are going through the halls, gory fantasies of the sharp pearls tearing clean through my flesh, painted red with blood.

Just as I'm thinking it, I trip over something, either thin air or a cord of muscle, and my face plows into the mush on the ground. The teeth chatter and rustle behind me, and a shadow passes over my body. Without even looking to see what it is, I scramble madly on my hands and knees to the nearest door. Wrenching it open, I throw myself inside and slam it behind me.

The wall of teeth slams into the wood, no doubt gouging it so thin that they almost reach me. After that, the sounds of havoc fade away, and I think they're gone, even though I'm still shaking and weak. I slump down on the floor, and barely manage to raise my head to look around, feeling like I'm going to vomit. It occurs to me that I'm in the classroom that everyone hovers around. Room 366. I know because it's the only one not empty. Just because it's not empty doesn't mean it feels any safer, though.

There are a handful of damaged looking desks scattered around the room, parts lying abandoned on the floor, everything looking like a wild bull rampaged through. One's lying on its side next to the boarded up window. The fluorescent lights in the ceiling are bare and uncovered, glaring down on the clean white surfaces. There are blank scraps of paper blowing lazily around in circles, held aloft by an unnatural, inexplicable wind.

I pick myself up, standing unsteadily for a minute before grabbing the wall to keep my balance. My head is starting to hurt. When I manage to gain my bearing, I stand up straight, and notice that my hand leaves a maroon imprint on the sterile looking paint. Excess liquid drips from the print, weeping down the wall to vanish into the floor.

The floor pulses under my feet, and the lights begin to flicker like there's a faulty wire. The papers rustle as the pulse comes again. This time I recognize it to be a heartbeat. There's a creak, then a groan, and suddenly the window that's behind the boards yawns open, cracks wide to reveal a fathomless black expanse into which the wood is swallowed up.

I'm truly in the belly of the beast now. It's hard to understand why I didn't think of it before, but I brought myself here, a willing lamb to the slaughter. And now it's going to consume all there is of me. Not that it doesn't possess most of me already; my body is the final thing it needs, since it ate my mind up weeks ago.

Somehow, I'm drawn irresistibly towards the black hole that I know full well will be my demise. I simply can't help taking step after slow step towards it. Despite my total lack of clarity, sanity, and rationality, everything left in me is shrieking at me to escape while I still can. But I just can't fight any longer, and my survival instincts are no match for the sheer magnetism that is compelling me to keep moving forward.

My toes curl around the edge of the floor, and I'm sucked into the abyss.

The darkness closes in folds around me like a loving, morbid mother. I close my eyes, reunited with peace once more.

**Okay! So, now that sheer weirdness is over. **

**If you didn't get it, the building is his high school. I started this when I was feeling a bit smothered by academic things, so it's understandable, I suppose. Anyway, 'til next time! **


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